Mr, Wang said the Chinese had no ambition and no fighting spirit; they really were cowards, and they were poor citizens, It needed a good citizen to be interested in Government and polities. The Chinese had learned to live pence-be gentlemen, with the heart of a the" Chinese poor diplomats child and the head of a man. Thus into the ports bringing many foreigners, who were very strange to the Chinese people; some of them carried with them a Cross liliand and a the other, they tried to ci with Christiani another group of foreigners, who carried opium, and they wanted to civilize the Chinese opium, The British, German, French, Belgions, Dutch, Italians, Russians, Americans, and Japanese all came into the country, and the Chinese followed the line of least resistance, When the Chinese refused the mands of the invaders, then there was war, and whenever war resulted the Chinese proved themselves bad fighters. They never thought of their country, but only of their families.
After several wars there was a Treaty, called the Unequal Treaty Decause it favoured only one side. By virtue of that Treaty the for~ eigners now enjoyed a great many privileges—they were immune from Chinese law and code, and were subject only to the Inw and code of it own country. Then the Mari-Customs fixed the rate and lcontrolied the services, and permitted tax of only 50 cents on goods coming into China, Mr. Wang gave conerete example. He sai when I went to America some four years ago, 1 took with me a piece of Chinese native silk, When T landed in Seattle the American Customs officer asked me for that piece of silk, which was worth $10, and taxed me $6.50, But, if the ways. Firstly, the women and children had to work under terrible conditions and at a very low wase. The average wage for a-man was about 60 cents, that for women about 45 cents, and that for child— ren, 25 to 30 cents a day. The second way out was for the men to but ible man would become soldiers and to fight,
gare to risk his life. Thus the civil war was prolonged. The third way out was for the men to become robbers. Those were the terri conditions connected with the w employment problem, and the unemployment problem was closely tied up with tariff control the ports. The Chinese had suffered humiliation and egression,, and they realized they must something to save their country from being enslaved, and they must educate the great massed, They commenced the education movement, in order to help the poo lo to love their country and be able to defend it, So far three steps had been taken: firstly, the nationalization of the school system. Their present system was very -much on the same lines as the American, They had what they termed a' six-three-three _plan—an elementary foundation to teach children to be good citizens, follow-fed by there years junior," and a three years senior "course, Girl were given the same opportunity education as boys.
Then came the National Rights Movement. The Chinese realized, they could not have an independ~ cent nation whilst the foreigners lived in China as their masters, They must be rid of them, and they must teach them to b¢ good Christians ang not devils., Thus. tent. Tt had had very little to do with them in the past, and that tically only for the purposes of collecting taxes. The people had to pay their taxes without any services in return. Therefore, how could the people. control themselves and live without Government control That was a sveret which very were pillars, built up by there Firally, the Chinese boy had to de a filial yon; second good neighbour and a good trict and, thirdly, a gentleman or scholar. Being a filial son meant to love his parents more than anything or anybody else in the world. To live with them and support them, and to try by every means to make them happy. A good neighbour and a good friend meant to help each other in times of need and settle disputes in times of conflict. A gentleman meant to develop the intelleet—the head—and at the same time retain the heart of a child. fully and smoothly, by a system of arbitration, and now they had no need of Government, so they had never had the chance of getting political experience. There was nother weakness of Chinas the never had grown up. A patriotic spirit was a very diferent thing in China, The lives of the people in the past were confined home, limited to their household and to their own families, and there was no national or patriotic spirit. Another weakness was that they. were too ignorant of the outside world, because it was their ideal to had been imported into China anyone else, or from America, the maximum rate would have been 50 cents tax." The Chinese tariff was controlled and the Chinese people could not protect their own industry.
How could the Chinese compete with other countries, when this state of affairs existed? All countries imported all kinds of goods, 430 that the Chinese could not work, How could they keep their bodies and souls together? Only in three currie about the agitation against the foreigners. The Chinese were averse to being domineered by the foreigners: they wanted to be the masters in their own country. They: were not anti-foreign, but were against the anti-foreign movement. All they wanted was to be in cantref Thus came educational revolution, social revolution and, economic revolution, Mr. Wang concluded by remarking that he "considered the only solution was the education of the masses, and that that was making steady progress, Be
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.